We are recruiting a full-time Researcher to work with us at the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) on a project that critically assesses the changing landscape of digital entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Researcher will conduct a grounded, comparative empirical study of digital entrepreneurship in African cities. We are interested in the practices of digital entrepreneurship, how opportunities in digital economies are created and exploited, which local actors are better or worse positioned to extract value, the emergence of clusters and ecosystems of digital entrepreneurship, and how African contexts affect these processes/how observed processes differ from the Global North. A secondary focus is on narratives and discourses around digital entrepreneurship in Africa, and how they shape on-the-ground realities.

The researcher will primarily focus on fieldwork in several African cities, as well as writing and analysis, using a range of methods (interviews, participant observation, thematic/narrative analysis, surveys). We are therefore seeking a researcher with experience in conducting qualitative social science and case studies.

The successful candidate will work with Professor Mark Graham and Dr Nicolas Friederici. This work is part of a larger five-year ERC-funded project titled Geonet, aiming to understand the implications of changing connectivities for African knowledge economies.

We seek candidates with a background in Economic Geography, Entrepreneurship Studies, Development Studies, (Urban) Sociology, Social Anthropology, Communications, Organisation Studies, Management or related disciplines. The position is intended for someone at the postdoctoral level (Grade 7: £31,076 – £38,183), but we will consider hiring strong candidates at the pre-doctoral stage (Grade 6: £27,629 – £32,958 p.a.).

The post runs for at least one year, with the possibility of renewal thereafter, funding permitting.